


Not what I signed up for

by tigerist



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bobby's Panic Room, Gen, not exactly canonical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerist/pseuds/tigerist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be a shelter - not a prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not what I signed up for

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tifaching](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tifaching/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Group Efforts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/256222) by [tifaching](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tifaching/pseuds/tifaching). 



 

 

“You should build one,” Rufus said when they came back from their eighth hunt together (a werewolf in Ohio, Bobby’s first one. Some nights he still woke up with the picture of its claws burned under his eyelids). He was sitting in the armchair in Bobby’s living room, beer bottle in one hand and turkey sandwich in the other one, talking about  a very persistent poltergeist he had to exorcise from its family tomb, and for a second there Bobby wondered what the hell would he need a family tomb for. He was just about to ask, too, when Rufus started talking again. “A panic room, I mean. It’s good to have a base, like you have, but if you’re in the business for the long haul, something’s bound to track you here, sooner or later. You need a place when you could hide then, one they couldn’t enter, in case the wards are not enough to stop them.”

“I know, better safe than sorry,” Bobby chanted from the sofa, the words already too familiar on his tongue and in his ears, taking a bite of his sandwich (tuna and mayo, his favorite). There was a nice buzz in his head thanks to the three beers he’d already had, but the idea of his house being invaded by some creatures still got to him. “Don’t want no creatures here,” he grunted, swallowing. “Wards are not enough?”

Rufus face got solemn. “You have to be five steps ahead of them or you’re as good as dead.”

Bobby tilted his head back, mulling it over. It didn’t sound that bad when he thought about it. He could make one in the basement - it would be easily accessible and he’d have some additional space he could use, too. Could be nice. “There’s no _Building Panic Room For Idjits_ manual out there, now is it?” he asked, reaching for another beer. He knew by then that nothing was easy in being a hunter.

“Why, it’s already two months on the New York Times Best Seller List,” Rufus said, his eyebrows raised. “I was sure you’d have a copy by now.”

“You think you’re so funny,” Bobby murmured, rolling his eyes. “Fine, I’ll hit the books tomorrow and try to come up with something.”

He forgot the whole conversation by the time the morning came.

 

*~*~*~*

 

“You were supposed to have some place we could use in such situations!” Rufus yelled some two years later when Bobby’s possessed neighbor stormed his front door, breaking it in half. “A little investment in reinforced doors wouldn’t hurt either, you cheapskate!”

“Shut up and jump it when I turn on the sprinklers!” Bobby shouted, running to the switch and hoping his newly installed, holy-water-only system would work.

That evening, after he ordered new doors from some manufacturer Rufus knew (“If it wasn’t for Bill Harvelle, the guy would be dead by now,” he said. “His wife vamped out and almost sucked him dry. Last I heard, he gave nice discounts to hunters.”), he dug out some books from his library and made a first sketch of his would-be panic room.

“You don’t really think that’s gonna help you any more than those sprinklers, do you?” Rufus asked after one look at it. Bobby gritted his teeth, counted to ten and went out to pay a visit to his favorite bookstore.

“Now you’re talking,” Rufus said, grinning, when he saw the revised design during his next visit. “Then again, some additional ghost-resistance wouldn’t hurt either, don’t you think?”

 

*~*~*~*

 

“Angels?” John asked, his tone carefully neutral, but Bobby knew him too well to fall for it. They were sitting in his office, Bobby at his desk, the blueprints of panic room and a book on angel lore in front of him, and John at the nearby table with his knives and all the necessary cleaning supplies. “Yeah, angels. Wings, halos, the works. Ever heard of them?” Bobby asked, looking up from his designs.

“I always thought people usually wanted to invite them in, not to keep them out,” John said, his tone dry, polishing his iron knife. “If they actually believed in them, of course.”

Bobby shook his head. When Rufus told him that angels were a touchy subjects with John, he was sure Turner exaggerated again. Looked like this time he was actually right. “The lore’s there, John. And it’s there for a reason.”

“I just don’t know why you even bother,” John continued, putting down the knife and reaching for his silver dagger. “Iron walls, Devil’s trap – that I get. Shouldn’t you keep focused on creatures that can actually hurt you?”

“You do remember the whole ‘warriors of heaven’ part, don’t you?” Bobby asked, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands. “If they are out there, I’d rather be prepared in case one of them decides to smite me.”

“Right,” John snorted. “You really think they might exist?” he asked, his tone a clear indication that only a fool would.

“What do I know?” Bobby shrugged. “Fifteen years ago I thought demon tales were bullshit. Six years ago I didn’t believe in shapeshifters and wendigos. Now, though? I’d like to think that I know better than to claim that something ‘doesn’t exist’. Too many things taken straight out of myths and fairy tales proved to be true.”

John was silent for a moment. “You read too much,” he said flatly, standing up and gathering his things, his eyes cast down. “You should hunt more. Then, instead of putting Enochian sigils on the walls, you’d add some kind of salt ring in there,” he added, turning on his heel and going towards the doors leading to the hallway.

“We can always switch, you know!” Bobby called after him. “You can stay here and read, preferably the _Parenting For Idjits_ copy I got you for Christmas, while I take Impala and hit the road. It might actually be good for those boys of yours too!”

When John slammed the door behind him, Bobby shrugged. “Salt ring,” he snorted, looking at the ‘salt-coated walls’ note scribbled on the design. “And you wonder why I never listen to you.”

Sighing, he got up and went to the kitchen. He knew John enough to know he was probably waking the boys up, telling them to pack and get in the car in ten minutes. Just because they had an idjit for a father, it didn’t mean Sammy and Dean had to go leave hungry and without a few sandwiches for the road. The blueprints could wait.

 

*~*~*~*

 

The blueprints waited quite some time, but finally the damn thing was finished, just as Bobby swore it would.  If it brought up bittersweet memories of Rufus, John and the very reason he even had a ghost-, demon- and angel-proof room in his house, it was nobody’s business but his own. And nobody needed to know about it, even Sam and Dean, at least until they _needed_ to use the room.

He often wondered whether it was optimistic or plain stupid of him that he still hoped they never would.

_Time will tell_ , something inside him said every single time.

 

*~*~*~*

 

 “Who knew the damn sigils might actually be useful,” Bobby murmured, scratching his beard when all the information he found confirmed that only an angel could snatch a soul from the pit. He looked up from his book, at Sam and Dean arguing in his kitchen, and sighed. “You two chuckleheads want to keep arguing religion, or do you want to come take a look at this?” he called.

_And John said I’m taking the ‘just in case’ motto to the extreme_ , he thought, watching the boys running to his desk.

 

*~*~*~*

 

“Any better?” Bobby asked, coming down to the basement with a plate full of sandwiches. He didn’t really think Dean would eat them – the two previous plates he’d brought were still in the same spot where he left them, untouched, and both had a generous helping of bacon on them – but he couldn’t just sit there, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on his research. If not going crazy meant he turned into Martha Stewart, then so be it.

“No,” Dean said, his voice hollow, still staring inside the panic room, and Bobby almost dropped the plate, startled. It was the first time Dean said anything ever since they’d closed the door with Sam on the other side, and to hear the emptiness in his voice after all those hours when he just stared into the panic room, utter desolation and torment written all over his face, was somehow even worse.

“You should eat something, boy,” he grunted, coming closer to Dean. “All that bacon won’t disappear by itself.”

“Not hungry,” Dean shrugged him off, his attention on Sam once again.

Bobby knew a lost cause when he saw one. He turned round, put the plate next to the others and sat down on the chair he hauled down from the kitchen a few hours before, staring at Dean’s back and trying not to listen to Sam’s cries.

When he designed and built the room, it was to provide safety for himself and the boys, to protect them from whatever supernatural creature wanted to off them. He never thought it would end up as a prison for one of his sons and that he would have to sit outside, listening to his cries and watching the other one’s misery, unable to help to either of them. It was never meant to happen.

Then again, nothing that ever happened to them was.


End file.
